Somewhereinusa

[Hank's P-O-S]

oh...... so not 12K?

no i was thinking closer to 5, thanks though!

[EastCoastCB]

Oh, man I just love the old Rabbits. Especially the PU's, or "caddies".
I had a 79' Diesel that I cherished when I was 17, it got something like 50+ mpg's!

[somewhereinusa]

Heat all plumbed, pressure tested and working in all zones. Floor laid.



Driver floor. Still need to finish area around pedals. Wanted to see how much everything expanded when it got hot.



I haven't gotten all of the air out of the main loop yet, so it's not working very good. And there are still three blowers that aren't hooked up. Outside temp about 30 deg, inside temp. 70 with nice warm floors.

[charles_m]

Wow! That's amazing and i am jealous! Very nice work. An inspiration!!!

[nat_ster]

I love it. All skoolies should have true hot water, in floor radiant heating. After having it, you will never want to be without.

Thank god you used the aluminum heat transfer plates. You would have gotten almost no heat with out them.

Nat

[somewhereinusa]

If anyone is interested, I've put up a schematic of my heating system on my web page here

http://www.somewhereinusa.x10.mx/heat2.html

Dick

[nat_ster]

Nicely documented.

Are there any isolation valves, or by pass loops on the heater cores, and the heat exchangers to avoid the extra restriction and flow loss, when they are not needed?

What are the lengths of the loops?

Do you have any head calculations per loop? Heater cores add big restriction.

What size pumps did you use?

How did you calculate what pump you needed where?

When I engineered mine, It has to be efficient running on off grid battery power. Running through extra heater cores and heat exchangers when not necessary would cause my variable flow pump to use more power. Valves are expensive, but anything to increase the flow rate, and decrease the electrical draw is a advantage.

Thx Nat

[somewhereinusa]

Originally Posted by nat_ster

Nicely documented.

Are there any isolation valves, or by pass loops on the heater cores, and the heat exchangers to avoid the extra restriction and flow loss, when they are not needed?
There are shut offs at beginning and end of each loop. The loops are from manifolds that I didn't show for ease of drawing. There is a shut off in main loop to allow circulation when not using heat.

What are the lengths of the loops?
Bedroom and bathroom loops are about 48 ft each kitchen/living loop about 150.

Do you have any head calculations per loop? Heater cores add big restriction.
No

What size pumps did you use?
The pumps are the same as inside of the Espar unit. Here is a picture of the manifolds and pumps.


How did you calculate what pump you needed where?

Since these pumps push better than pull, I just put them all at the begininning of each loop

When I engineered mine, It has to be efficient running on off grid battery power. Running through extra heater cores and heat exchangers when not necessary would cause my variable flow pump to use more power. Valves are expensive, but anything to increase the flow rate, and decrease the electrical draw is a advantage.

Thx Nat

My system is very inefficient I'm sure. It wasn't really engineered, I just put it together. There were some places in the tubing where I had to use an elbow or connector just because in the limited space I couldn't use curve. Electrically very bad. The boiler and pumps are 24VDC, got them at a really good deal. Best way I could find to get 24V was a 120VAC converter. When not plugged to shore power, I'm using an inverter to get 120VAC then a converter to get 24VDC. Fans on heater units are 12VDC. All very messy, but it works and I'm quite happy with it. We haven't really had any cold temps since I got it all going, but at 0 deg, I can get it quite comfortable in there. At 0 the boiler will cycle through high and low, indicating that I'm not loosing all of the heat. After it's warm I can turn off all of the blowers and maintain the comfort with just the warm floor. I'm sure Jack is cringing at the complete lack of testing I did. I'm in the process of writing an operators manual for the whole bus, I keep forgetting how I did things and what needs to be on to work right.

Dick

[nat_ster]

Thx for the info.

Nat

[ol trunt]

Hey Somewhere. When you can turn out quality like that who needs mock-ups! Even with my testing, my finished product looks like an Escherian staircase assembled by Rube Goldberg compired to yours. Really nice work. Jack

[claydbal]

Originally Posted by somewhereinusa

We haven't really had any cold temps since I got it all going, but at 0 deg,

Dick

man, that just aint right! i consider it cold if its below 80!

[Veganvegabond]

First and foremost, a bit of a warning, sometimes it's hard for me to fully explain in text the thoughts that go through my head, so if I don't make sense, I apologize ahead of time.

@Nat and/or Dick: Would it be possible to hook up this radiant heat system to the taps(shower and sink) while still allowing the system to circulate? My thought is that you could have the boiler/heater for the radiate heat and as a water heater for your water taps you would save space by not having to add a second water heater(even a tankless one). Would this over work the system or do those hoses not contain enough water flow for a typical shower and sink usage? I do realize there would also be a risk of air bubbles bursting the system, unless that isn't a factor.

@Claydbal: I remember when temps below 80 bugged me. Then I moved to the north west. Now it's getting into the upper 50s and feels like spring time. I miss being in a warm climate.

[somewhereinusa]

Would it be possible to hook up this radiant heat system to the taps(shower and sink) while still allowing the system to circulate? My thought is that you could have the boiler/heater for the radiate heat and as a water heater for your water taps you would save space by not having to add a second water heater(even a tankless one). Would this over work the system or do those hoses not contain enough water flow for a typical shower and sink usage? I do realize there would also be a risk of air bubbles bursting the system, unless that isn't a factor.

If you look at the diagram, there are three separate loops. The engine has ethylene glycol antifreeze in it. Poison. The heating system has propylene glycol antifreeze. Unless both heat exchangers sprung an internal leak at the same time, the poison stuff never gets to the fresh water. Unless you want to run the heat any time there is a slight chance of freezing you need antifreeze in the heating system.

[Stu & Filo. T]

Originally Posted by Veganvegabond

First and foremost, a bit of a warning, sometimes it's hard for me to fully explain in text the thoughts that go through my head, so if I don't make sense, I apologize ahead of time.

You think you got it bad you should try listening to the voices in my head,
just yesterday 9 out of the 10 voices were saying I should just call in sick to work so I could stay home & clean my guns but that 10th one kept arguing that I should go in so I could afford more ammo

[somewhereinusa]

Went on a trip to Wisconsin last month, :skoolie_bus: was going to stay for 2 days, stayed for almost a week. Even made some money.

The heat works better than in my wildest dreams.
I have been using the bus for over two years, this is the first time I really felt comfortable even though things are far from finished. Hot shower,warm floors,permanently installed microwave,large reefer.
I am now at a place where I can start doing some finish work.
In keeping with my tradition of never using anything for it's intended purpose. I just finished up my under cabinet led lights in the kitchen.
I am quite pleased with the results and only have maybe $20 invested in all of them.





When I first got them I was a little concerned about how much light they would make, and the color. These after dark shots show plenty of light and I like the color.





Here are some detail shots. I got the stainless dipping cups at Sam's.



Exploded view.



The lights came with a plug in base, quite simple to take it off and solder wires on. I was surprised to find that these boards aren't polarity dependent, must be something built into the board. When I put it together I used a much larger hole in the metal part where the wires pass through so as to avoid any shorting problem. I simply screwed to the bottom of the cabinet and used silicone to hold spacer and pcb into the cup.

Dick

[bansil]

very slick...must steal

[somewhereinusa]

Do you need my address to send royalty fees to?

[c_hasbeen]

I bet drilling that stainless steel cup took some time!

[c_hasbeen]

Originally Posted by somewhereinusa


[img

http://www.skoolie.net/attachments/photobucket/img_109751_ced8bfc8a7b8d82c960ab64d48f55888.jpg[/img]

is the roof rack bolted to the ribs on top?
thanks
Cliff

[milkmania]

Somewherinusa,
I really appreciate your resourcefulness!
I checked out your website, and couldn't get past your "putting up flag" without posting this...When I was camping, I used an old dishnetwork tripod for my flag stand.
after camping, I come home and put it back up

at home I don't pin the tripod down with tent stakes, I bungee it down to an eyebolt in an old tree stump.... I'm seen the wind blow the pole over at least 45 degrees, and pop right back up.
I recently received another tripod (asked a dish installer at the gas pump) that I use for my homemade 1 inch copper wind chimes.
These tripods are rather useful, I could see using them for a volleyball net even, flood light pole, or similar project.